This disclosure relates to a gas turbine engine, and more particularly to turbine vane platform cooling arrangements that may be incorporated into a gas turbine engine.
Gas turbine engines typically include a compressor section, a combustor section and a turbine section. During operation, air is pressurized in the compressor section and is mixed with fuel and burned in the combustor section to generate hot combustion gases. The hot combustion gases are communicated through the turbine section, which extracts energy from the hot combustion gases to power the compressor section and other gas turbine engine loads.
Both the compressor and turbine sections may include alternating series of rotating blades and stationary vanes that extend into the core flow path of the gas turbine engine. For example, in the turbine section, turbine blades rotate and extract energy from the hot combustion gases that are communicated along the core flow path of the gas turbine engine. The turbine vanes, which generally do not rotate, guide the airflow and prepare it for the next set of blades.
In turbine vane design, there is an emphasis on stress-resistant airfoil and platform designs, with reduced losses, increased lift and turning efficiency, and improved turbine performance and service life. The vane platforms include cooling features, such as film cooling holes that are supplied cooling fluid through platform cooling passages. The platform cooling passages may be provided by flat, serpentine-like ceramic core structures arranged within the platforms. The resultant platform cooling passages formed by the cores are intended to protect the vane platform from the hot combustion gases. Moreover, the cores have been contained in the portion of the platform aft of the airfoil such that the core does not pass beneath any significant portion of the airfoil's other cooling passages. To achieve desired platform cooling results, non-linear flow analyses and complex strain modeling are required, making practical results difficult to predict. Vane loading and temperature considerations also impose substantial design limitations, which cannot easily be generalized from one system to another.